The post-Khomeini era has profoundly changed the socio-political landscape of Iran. Since 1989, the internal dynamics of change in Iran, rooted in a panoply of socioeconomic, cultural, institutional, demographic, and behavioral factors, have led to a noticeable transition in both societal and governmental structures of power, as well as the way in which many Iranians have come to deal with the... More >

Please join us on February 26 for "Autocratic Legalism," a presentation by Kim Lane Scheppele of Princeton University, with discussions by Dylan Riley and Jason Wittenberg. This event is presented as part of the UC Berkeley Department of Sociology's Departmental Colloquium Series.

Big ideas like the deep connections between quarks and the cosmos and powerful instruments like the Hubble Space Telescope and Large Hadron Collider have advanced our understanding of the universe. We can now trace its history from the big-bang beginning 13.8 billion years ago through an early state of quantum fluctuations to a soup of quarks and other particles, from the formation of nuclei and... More >

In a post-truth era, the role of trusted institutions of science is more important than ever. Drawing on recent initiatives organized by The Natural History Museum, a mobile and pop-up museum founded by the activist art collective Not An Alternative, this talk will explore how The Natural History Museum leverages the symbolic and infrastructural power of science museums to transform them into... More >

International relations has recently enjoyed a historical turn, in which the intellectual biographies of major figures like E.H. Carr and Hans Morgenthau, as well as the origins of central concepts like internationalism and realism have been reconstructed. Figures from Henry Kissinger to Barack Obama have claimed the mantle of realist, but the figure who gave its most distinctive modern... More >

In light of our current political crisis around climate change, what can architecture and design contribute toward a new planetary imaginary of our contemporary environment? If climate change is a crisis of imagination, as literary historian Amitav Ghosh states, or a profound mutation in our relation to the world, as put by Bruno Latour, can design imagination provide any insights in this dilemma... More >

Spatial data collection, analysis and visualization has changed dramatically in the last decade. We now have, for example, high spatial and temporal resolution imagery, integrated smart phones as data collectors, and cloud-based analytical platforms to work with. Collectively, these developments make up our 21st century mapping toolkit that is in increasing demand to address contemporary... More >

The colony operates with a double standard. Women are both largely excluded from schooling and supposed to be protected by their male fellow citizens. Everything then happens as if, according to the old despotic saying, colonial politics were benevolent toward them: they must be protected from their own. But how? And in what sense?

Worn on ones person or placed in homes, Jewish amulets are used at moments of vulnerability and transition, like childbirth, marriage, or illness. They feature texts including biblical verses, Psalms, divine names, and invocations of powerful figures like angels, and... More >

Along the Central Coast of California, changes in shoreline management practices and their subsequent effects on fisheries can be examined in the context of long-term human occupation, climatic and environmental variability, and the development of Indigenous, Spanish, Mexican, and American relationships with the environment. While extensive archaeological investigation regarding indigenous... More >

Timothy Scott Brown will discuss the global revolt of 1968 on both sides of the Cold War divide, identifying basic principles that underpinned the revolt in its diverse national and regional locations. Exploring the transnational exchanges and communities of the imagination that make it possible to speak of a global 1968, he will place the events of fifty years ago in historical perspective with... More >

George W. Bush's War on Terror has led to seventeen years of armed conflict, making it the longest war in US history. Professor Mark Danner examines this state of perpetual struggle and its widespread acceptance in the name of American security.

Since 1988 Jeanne C. Finley and John Muse have worked collaboratively on numerous experimental documentaries and installations. These works have been exhibited nationally and internationally, at festivals and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney Biennial, San Francisco International Film Festival,... More >

I examine the relationship among mobility, forced removals, and claims to space by analyzing how high school-age members of Khmer Girls in Action in Long Beach interrogate the school to prison to deportation pipeline. In their activism, they link the criminalization of Khmer refugees to the legacies of US wars in southeast Asia and the failures of the US refugee resettlement program.

WED, FEB 28, 6:30pm. Please join us for a talk with Professor Abramson about why the idea of architectural obsolescence was invented in early-twentieth-century America and how it has influenced design and urbanism up to the present age of sustainability.

The C.19 & Beyond British Cultural Studies Working Group is pleased to invite you all to hear our guest speaker Joe Farrell present work from his forthcoming book, "Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa," which analyzes the author's final years in Samoa and his relationship to British Colonialism.

As the US economy improves, the unemployment rate continues to fall. But job loss has far-reaching and long-lasting consequences, and many Americans are still dealing with the economic, social, and psychological effects of layoffs. Professor Brand will explore the complex ways that the shock of job loss impacts workers career achievement, economic outcomes, and wellbeing, and how these effects... More >

Many people have an intuitive sense that the built environment is bound up with politics. The lecture poses the question how we might think more systematically (and normatively) about the relationship between democracy and architecture as well as public spaces as a particular form of the built environment.

Sacks argues computing grew out of the arts. This argument will be a provocation for some, especially for those who see a bright line dividing the two cultures of the arts and the sciences. For others, the argument will not seem provocative at all.

Relying on years of ethnographic research among avowedly secular people, Blankholm argues that becoming secular is a transformative process akin to conversion, and that secular Americans who are not white or who convert from non-Christian religions face unique challenges that lead to new forms of secularism.

What are the potential therapeutic benefits of Cannabis to ameliorate physical and psychological illnesses? Because of the constraints on conducting medical research on Cannabis and related products, much available information is empirical and has not been subjected to the rigors of the scientific method.

Seating is first come, first served. Advance registration does not guarantee seating.

About Kara Swisher
Kara Swisher is one of the country's most influential journalists covering Silicon Valley, the focus of her reporting for over two decades. She is the executive editor of Recode, host of the Recode Decode podcast and co-executive producer of the high-profile Code Conference. Swisher... More >

Prof. Robinson will discuss his new book, which examines the shocking anti-leftist purge that gripped Indonesia in 196566, leaving some 500,000 people dead and more than one million others in detention. The book will be available for sale at the end of the lecture.

During the nineteenth century, Serbian and Croatian national movements defined themselves against the specter of the Turk. Yet even as they explicitly named the Turks as sworn enemies, many Serbian-Croatian nationalists simultaneously described Bosnian Turks or Muslims as their brothers, pointing to their shared language, traditions, and ancestry. As one leading South Slavic nationalist... More >

Abstract: A combination of forces is affecting the development and delivery of infrastructure and transportation services and presenting the industry with new challenges. Forces such as politics, budgetary constraints, organizational and workforce issues, and technology continue to change and require innovative approaches and solutions. With a new and different level of engagement by the private... More >